I can understand the fear of being sued or fined but this is far outside the bounds of common sense.
I would suggest to you, for example, that Wikipedia is a much larger target with much more to lose. Yet they still have a profile of presidents Trump, Obama and Bush, Queen Elizabeth, Theresa May, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence and every other politician and celebrity on the planet. This alone should be an indication that wikitree has absolutely nothing to fear from the GDPR with regard to profiles of public figures.
It is disingenuous to say if you don’t like it, then go away. I have 62,700+ wikitree edits (all made one at a time without a gedcom upload) and hundreds of hours invested in making wikitree a better place. I think I will stay Gaile, and argue for some common sense, even if it isn’t falling in line with some leadership decisions. This is one policy which needs a little deeper thought put into it.
I do see these decisions as hurting both the promise and the future of wikitree. Part of the fun of genealogy is being able to make connections to each other, to historical figures, and to celebrities. Since the beginning of wikitree a key feature has been the relationship finder and the connection finder (how many steps are you from Queen Elizabeth and Kevin Bacon?). Wikitree is less useful and more confusing to new people when you can’t even enter your immediate family and share your tree with your nearest relatives.
Again, this fear of being fined does not make any sense. These people are public figures whose lives, data and connections are readily available from hundreds to thousands of sources (I would actually make this one of the criteria for what a public person is on wikitree). Why should wikitree be the only entity taking such drastic steps?